My Compostela and breakfast by nuns (Day 19)

Last night, after a glorious laundry process at the local laundromat, I had a chance to go to the main church (13th century) of Shagun with Jeff. In this church, you present your Camino passport, which you receive the stamps from every town that you have stayed and that allows you to get your halfway compestela certifying you that you have walked from St. Jean to Shagun (just beyond half point). Below is the church and my halfway marker Compostela. While this is only a participation thropy, it is a very meaningful one for me.

Was also special to get it together with Jeff. In the last 10 days or so I had a chance to get to know Jeff really well. Jeff is a father of three from Ohio and is about 10 years older than me but extremely fit and healthy. He is very close with his wife (Ahmet - ☑️) and also with his adult children (Ahmet - hope so). In our Camino family he is viewed as the wise one and the leader, even though he has never claimed or asked for it. He is very soft-spoken, thoughtful. Every morning he leaves first about an hour before anyone and sends us a scouting report of cafe’s and stores open on the Camino. Even if he eats at one, he would go in and check the menu, ambiance of the next one for his scouting report. Perhaps not something huge but I find it very generous of him to do this everyday. I will also always remember his kindness of treating my feet on day 6 (5 min after meeting me) and loaning me his sandals for day 7 which saved my Camino.

Since that moment, we have become friends and had a lot of deep discussions on The Way about family, life, religion and some politics. He just retired after a long executive career in finance, followed by building his own financial audit company that he just sold to initiate his retirement. He is someone I look up to on the Camino. Can’t wait for Amy to meet him on 27th.

Last night we stayed at a monastery that I have the photos below. It is run by volunteers and nuns that are very shy about photography for obvious reasons (I could not take photos of them). The accommodations were very basic with beds that had very thin mats but everything was clean and I had a great donation based breakfast which I took a photo prepared for me by Catholic nuns. Six months ago, I would have never imagined that I would have breakfast prepared for me by catholic nuns. The breakfast is always free and if you would like you can donate which I donated two euros. The monastery is the building on the right of the gates of Shagun. I also put a pin on Ankara and made it official as the first Turkish pilgrim that stayed in this monastery in the year two thousand twenty four A.D.

Today I walked 19kms due to a short stage. This is my 2nd day of being ibuprofen free. I need it badly but looked it up. It was invented in 1962 and first introduced to public in 1969. That means +95% percent of pilgrims in history walked the way without it. So will this pilgrim moving forward. Dumping my ibuprofen to the toilet yesterday morning felt weird. I miss them dearly. They were my precious!

Photos from today. Meseta is monotonous but there is a certain calm beauty to it. Can’t wait for Leon which is only 45 kms away ending the part 2 of my 3 part journey.

Kms today: 19 kms

Kms total: 468 kms

Steps total: 158.4k Amy, 621.5k Ahmet